Half Marathon Training – Pre Training Week.

© cienpies.net
(http://www.cienpies.net)

One week of my half marathon training done. Yah!

I thought I would update you with various aspects of the training and how I go along the way. I'm aiming to update you every Sunday evening or Monday morning/afternoon/evening (depending how busy I am :D).

So, I’m using Half Marathon Coach, which takes a bit to get used to (like I didn’t realise you could actually swap around the training days, which is very useful!) but seems to be really good.

As I had 15 weeks until my half marathon, it gave me a 14 week program with one week ‘pre-training’ as a more gentle introduction to the program.

My pre-training week consisted of:

Tuesday – Rest. (It was a struggle, but I did it :D).

Wednesday – 15 minute easy (1 minute run with 1 minute walk). I was feeling pretty gun-ho after my day of rest, so did 30 minutes at an easy pace, with a few minutes walking in the middle to break it up. Felt pretty awesome afterwards, I have to admit.

Thursday – 1 hour cross training. Did 30 minutes on the elliptical trainer and then 30 minutes on the bike. Wasn’t really going hard, but built up a sweat and stuck out the whole time, so that was something. (was watching Top Gear’s trip across Africa, at one point was laughing so hard I almost fell of the machine. Yeah, I got a few stares. But it was really funny!)

Friday – easy 20minutes. I actually swapped Saturday and this, so I rested today.

Saturday – Rest. Did Friday’s easy 20 minutes. After warming up, did 20minutes straight at an easy pace. Working out what is ‘easy’ what is ‘pace’ and what is ‘long and easy’ is probably the most difficult thing. It’s going to take a bit of trial and error to see what works best.

Sunday – 30 minutes long. Did it at a slightly slower than ‘easy’ pace. It was good to start working up to the longer runs, because while my body is perfectly able to do them, I just don’t have the appropriate mindset just yet to say – get on there and just keep going for an hour. So the 20 then the 30 was a good intro.

So, will need to work on adjusting my pacing for the different types of runs so I can get the most out of them.

I'm also trying to bring my weight down a bit over the training period, so I don't have to lug as much around the course.

I want to drop 0.5kgs per week, which is a reasonably amount (I could probably lose more if I tried, but I'd be happy with losing 7kgs, which would get me just under 70kgs).

I weighed myself after my 'long' run on Sunday (normally I think I'll try to weight myself before the long run so I don't take into account dehydration as the run increases in length).

Pre-week 1 weight: 76.3kgs.

Pre-week 1 Speeds:
'Easy' pace - 9km/h.
'Long' pace - 8km/h.

(I know this is almost walking for some people, but they are a steady plod for me.)

Hoping in a month to have my easy at 10km and my long at 9km.

As you can see, am not a super guru at running. So if I can do it, I'm sure you can work your way towards your goal as well!